


Morut'yc

by lesbian_from_next_door



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Din Djarin Needs a Hug, Eventual Smut, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied forced prostitution, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Mostly follows the plot of the show, Slow Burn, but i will try not to physically describe her much!, no y/n, picked up just before grogu, reader has her own back story, reader is a bounty, some canon divergence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:47:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29894457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbian_from_next_door/pseuds/lesbian_from_next_door
Summary: The Mandalorian has another bounty to pick up on his way to Arvala-7, thinking nothing of taking a thief back to pay off her debt. As he gets further into these two assignments however, he quickly realizes that neither bounty is exactly what he had been expecting...
Relationships: Din Djarin/Original Female Character(s), Din Djarin/Reader, Din Djarin/You
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything substantial in years so bear with me as I basically learn to write again! I've been hyperfocussing on Din for months now and I need a creative outlet! Never written a reader fic either so any advice would be appreciated, also sorry if this fic is super generic and overdone but I figure if I want to read a million of these fics so must others.  
> Thank you to any support or feedback! I am going to try update this relatively often but I may fall behind schedule depending of how busy uni is.  
> Warning that I'm not awesome at Star Wars lore, planets, names, and any languages used comes straight from wookieepedia so I'm likely to mess some it up a bit.

You knew this couldn’t last forever. While you had been doing pretty well for herself under the circumstances the last week, with no ship, no equipment, no clue what planet you had even crash landed on, you always had the knowledge in the back of your mind that Khalmar would most likely send someone after you. You owe that sleaze enough money that there’s no chance he would let you get away that easily. 

Nevertheless, this knowledge doesn’t stop you from trying to run when you spot the first glimpse of something shiny between the trees as you cook the bird you had caught for your next meal. Surely Khalmar had insisted that you had to be brought back alive, what use were you to him dead? The chances of your pursuer trying to shoot you are thin enough that running won’t cause any added danger to the situation, other than the tripping hazards all over the forest floor. Then again, would being killed by this bounty hunter really be any worse than having to go back where you came from? Trying to look on the bright side, you think that perhaps you can run faster than whatever is hunting you, maybe you can get far enough away to give you time to shimmy up a tree and stay there until the hunter gives up or needs to rest. Whatever it is, it can’t keep going forever.

This hope is dashed within seconds of you starting to run, as something wraps itself around your ankle, a wire of some sort, pulling your left leg out from underneath you. You reach for your blaster in your pocket, hoping to get a shot at your attacker, before you realise you left it back at the campfire and mentally kick yourself at the stupidity. The figure reaches you within seconds, a large gloved hand wrapping around your arm and hauling you from the ground so you can stand again, pulling your arms behind your back and securing them with a pair of binders. 

Once you finally manage to turn around to get a good look at who has been sent to take you back to Khalmar, your heart leaps to your throat out of fear, shock, and just a hint of intrigue. The glimpse you had caught of the bounty hunter’s helmet between the trees earlier should have clued you in, but a Mandalorian was the last thing you had expected to see standing in front of you. You had only ever heard wild rumours about them, never truly knowing what was real and what had just been made up for a good story. At the sight of the figure you quickly realise that even with a better head start you still would have had no chance at escape, if even only the tiniest portion of the rumours were true. 

He is almost completely covered in armor, made from red durasteel that looks like it is either years old, or just well used. It is covered in cracks, missing bits of paint, and dents. His helmet and right pauldron however look much newer, shiny silver pieces that don’t seem to have a single blemish. They don’t look like durasteel either, and you wonder if this Mandalorian has somehow gotten a hold of beskar.

The Mandalorian pushes your shoulder forward, and you stumble a couple of steps ahead. “Move”, a rough voice directs you through the mask of a modulator. Looking at him as you start moving forward, you wonder what the Mandalorian looks like under the helmet. He sounds and looks like a man, but then again, who knows how much the armor disguises the true figure. Whatever he looks like it doesn’t matter, you think to yourself. Whether he’s human or not he’s still going to deliver you back to your debtor, who no doubt is not going to be particularly merciful after you ran away. 

The two of you begin your trek, presumably to the Mandalorian’s ship. You have not explored particularly far beyond your own ship’s crash site yet, not wanting to move so far away that you couldn’t find your way back. The one you had stolen was much lower on fuel than you had hoped, which had placed you in the rather undesired position of crash landing on an unknown planet before being able to make any sort of plan or pick up resources. As you had descended to the earth you were not particularly focussed on the terrain of the planet, rather on landing in a way that wouldn't leave you dead or mortally injured. From the bounty hunter’s lack of packed equipment you assume he hadn’t landed much more than a day's walk away, which meant a section of flat earth not covered by trees somewhere nearby. 

In some ways you’re almost grateful you’ve been found by someone, although ideally it wouldn’t have been a bounty hunter. Who knows how much longer you would have been able to survive on your own on this planet? You have no idea how many bolts were in the blaster you had found on the stolen ship, but you assume it would have eventually run out, and then how would you have hunted for food? It's not like you’ve ever had much experience providing for yourself like this, it was a miracle you had survived as long as you had. Your only other options would have been to wander aimlessly trying to find some form of intelligent life which might have helped you, or start trying to scavenge for food which would have probably ended up poisoning you.

As you walk, the Mandalorian follows close behind, occasionally giving directions but never more than one word instructions. He seems to be on edge, which confuses you. Presumably he knows why he has been paid to return you? You don’t talk to a guy like Khalmar and not instantly know that the only business he deals in is debt and employing people on their last legs into legally questionable positions to pay him off. He must know that you don’t have any sort of ability to fight back, and after your display of your inability to escape the Mandalorian when you were already free, surely he knows you don’t have any chance of escaping now.  
No matter his assumptions about you though, you know that your best course of action is to totally comply with this bounty hunter. The last thing you want to do is piss him off and end up being punished for it. Chances are he isn’t the most patient man in the galaxy.

After a long trek, light begins filtering in from between the trees. The planet’s suns are beginning to rise again, you must have been walking throughout the night. Just ahead you can see a gap in the path, what looks like a grassy clearing. As you finally leave the shade of the trees for the first time in a week, you spot what is presumably the Mandalorian’s ship ahead, the only sign of civilization you have seen so far on this planet. 

It is at this point that you begin wondering exactly how much the Mandalorian is being paid to bring you in. You had assumed that a Mandalorian would be being paid an incredibly high rate, they’re not exactly easy to come across and Khalmar isn’t the sort to hold back on payment, but from the looks of the ship he can’t be being paid particularly much per job or he would have replaced this ancient ship. It has to be pre-empire, you have no clue how the hunk of junk is still being held together. Your mechanical experience is limited but even you know that this thing shouldn’t still be flying. 

Once on the ship, you can tell that he doesn’t look after the inside of it either. Luggage and equipment is strewn around the floor of the lower cargo hold, it doesn't look like anything has been dusted in years, and there are a bunch of what look to be blaster holes that have been patched up all over the walls. You can only hope that the mechanics of the ship are looked after much better than the cosmetics or this might be a record breakingly short trip that ends with you floating through the vacuum of space. 

Slowly walking along the ship as the Mandalorian closes the doors behind you, you turn around and notice the carbonite chamber along the wall, freezing you in your place. You’ve never had the misfortune of being a victim of the substance but you have seen plenty of others be subjected to it throughout your time working for Khalmar, and heard the stories about the horrible experience and its side effects. Turning your head to look at the Mandalorian who is placing his weapons in a vault behind you, you point a thumb at the chamber. 

“Are you going to have to freeze me?” you query, trying to hide the slight shake of fear in your voice. The Mandalorian stops walking towards the ladder in the corner of the room and slowly turns his whole body to look where you’re pointing. You wonder if this is for dramatic effect, or maybe it’s just difficult to turn your head by itself when you’re encased in that much armor.

After pausing for a few seconds he replies. 

“Only if I need to.”

The bounty hunter turns back around and begins climbing up to the cockpit, the sound of metal clinking as his armor hits the ladder, and pauses for a second before speaking to you so quietly you almost miss it, 

“you can sit up here. It's more comfortable.”

In some ways you think it might have been more comfortable sitting on the metal floor of the cargo hold. There isn’t exactly much space in the cockpit, and the atmosphere isn’t ideal either. Why does he have to be so tense and silent all the time? He barely moves an inch either, other than to press buttons on the dashboard.  
The Mandalorian doesn’t seem to speak any more than is absolutely necessary, you haven’t heard him say a word so far that hasn’t been an instruction other than his response to your question earlier, and you’ve been with him for hours. 

To be fair, you haven’t made any sort of an effort to make conversation either, the last thing you want is to make acquaintance with the man who has been hired to take you back to the place you had just managed to escape. Once you return you imagine you will be under guard constantly, Khalmar won’t let you escape him again.  
Despite this you still have questions milling around in your head, mostly about your captor, his armor, and the creed you have heard so much about. It's unlikely you will ever get an opportunity to speak to a Mandalorian again, but it seems like there's very little chance that he would answer any of those questions. Instead you begin with something more directly useful, clearing your throat as you exit the planet’s atmosphere and he begins the jump to hyperspace. 

“So I suppose you’re taking me straight back to Jaymir? One last day of freedom before I go pay my dues?” 

The Mandalorian shifts in his seat, only just enough that you barely notice the movement. He seems to contemplate his answer for a few moments before coming up with a response. 

“Not quite” he replies, “there's one stop for another bounty.”

“Aha so I get a bit of sightseeing first?”

“Unlikely.” he replies curtly. “You will stay here.”

You’re initially surprised at this comment, would he really trust a bounty enough to just leave you with his ship? Then your mind returns to the carbonite freezer in the space below you and you start to worry again. As if reading your mind, the Mandalorian clarifies, “the upper cargo hold locks from the outside.”

It isn’t an ideal situation by any means, but at least you will have some time alone before having to go back to your old job for the rest of your life. A few extra hours of freedom makes even the slightest difference. And anything beats being stuck in carbonite.

“It will be a few hours before we land. Rest.” the Mandalorian says as he crosses his arms and settles in his seat, facing forward although you have no clue whether he has his eyes closed to sleep or is just staring out into space through the helmet’s visor. You bring your knees up to your chest on the chair, wrapping your arms, which are still stuck together with the binders, around your legs, trying to make yourself as comfortable as possible. 

As you eventually drift off to sleep your mind wanders to what you will be returning to. You can always hope that the second bounty takes a while to retrieve, or something goes wrong so that your return can be delayed as long as possible. The rest of your life will be no doubt spent paying off this betrayal on top of your original debt, might as well enjoy these last few hours or days as much as you can, even if that means sitting alone in a cargo hold or sitting in the most uncomfortable passenger’s seat in the galaxy with a Mandalorian who might as well be a droid.


	2. Chapter 2

You wake up with a start when the continuous hum of the ship changes, as the Mandalorian begins the landing cycle. Bringing your legs back down to the ground and sitting up in your seat, you take a look out the front window to see where you are touching down. The planet you’re landing on is brown as far as the eye can see, a rocky landscape which seems to be covered in sand. Not exactly your idea of a nice place for a holiday. Then again, it's unlikely that you will even get to set foot on the ground here. The Mandalorian maneuvers the ship through the valleys carved out by mountains rising on either side, looking for a good place to land before settling on a spot shaded by a cliff face. The ship fixes itself on the earth with a clunk and groan, which reminds you of your earlier worries about its integrity.   
After fiddling with a few buttons on the dashboard, stilling the rumbling of the ship, the bounty hunter turns to you and nods his head towards the door of the cockpit.

“Go make yourself comfortable in the upper cargo hold. You might be here for a while.”

Standing up from the seat you head through the door, passing the top of the ladder and waiting by the entrance to the cargo hold at the back of the small corridor. The Mandalorian reaches past you, pressing a few buttons on a panel by the door, which slides open with a hiss.

You don’t know what you were expecting from the room but you certainly didn’t expect it to be totally empty. This man has that much shit crammed into the lower hold and yet there's absolutely nothing up here? Maybe it's just too much effort to carry those boxes up the ladder. There could certainly be worse rooms in the galaxy to be stuck in for who knows how long. In the corner of the room you spy a tiny vacc tube, at least you won't have to worry about that. Otherwise there is nothing of note, the room is rather small, but not so tiny that you will feel cramped, there is at least enough space to walk around a bit.

As you take a step into the cargo hold, the Mandalorian suddenly moves past you, making you jump slightly, not expecting him to be there. He must have climbed down the ladder while you stood there contemplating the room, as he was holding a large bundle of cloth in one arm and a metal case in the other. The Mandalorian places both in the corner of the cargo hold, before turning back around. He looks around the room for a few seconds before focusing on you again.

“There's a week's worth of food and water in the box. Ration it. You won't be of use to anyone if you die of dehydration in here. The blankets should make you more comfortable.”

The hunter walks towards you and you flinch back for a second, unsure what his intentions are, but he just reaches to take the binders off your arms. Rubbing the lingering red marks on your wrists you watch him head towards the door of the cargo hold, stopping just outside for a second before the entrance locks with a loud clunk.

So this is your home for the next few days. There are worse ways you could be spending this time, although there are certainly better ways you could be spending it too. You wander across the room to the resources the Mandalorian had left you, opening the case of food to have a look at what your menu for the week is. It's not exactly gourmet meals, but the food doesn't look terrible. To be honest you think that it could last you much longer than the week he suggested, but you don't want to risk running out, rationing it will still be the best option.

It's less than a minute after the door to your room closes that you hear a faint yell coming from outside the ship, followed by low a low animalistic growl. You strain your ears to work out what the noises are, the yelling sounded like the Mandalorian, although you could be mistaken. It's not like you knew his voice well, seeing as he had barely spoken to you. After sitting there for a few seconds you hear a crackling sound, and then nothing. What in the force was all that about? Wouldn't it be just your luck if the Mandalorian had been killed by some horrifying creature seconds after locking you in his ship. You wonder if there is any possibility of you breaking yourself out if he hasn’t returned within the week, before realising that you won’t even be able to tell how many days have passed. There's no way of seeing what time of day it is outside, maybe if you're lucky it might cool down noticeably at night but otherwise you are just going to have to rely on keeping track of when you get hungry and tired.

Pacing the room for a few minutes gives you the time to calm down a bit, giving you the opportunity to come up with at least some sort of a plan. You head over to the stack of food, and begin sorting it into 28 meal piles. If you can remember how many meals you have eaten it might at least help you keep track of approximately how long you have been in there. That gives you two meals a day for at least two weeks. Pushing the thought of the noises you heard earlier aside, you assume that the Mandalorian will be back within a week, like he said. In a worst case scenario, if you get down to the last 8 meals then that will be your indicator that you need to start trying to find a way out.

You lay out the blankets in the corner of the room by the door, trying to place enough on the floor so that you can lie on them comfortably, while keeping enough free to keep you warm if it does cool down overnight. Sitting down in your homemade bed you begin reciting old songs from your childhood under your breath. If you're stuck here you might as well entertain yourself the only way you know how, the same way you used to distract yourself at work between clients back on Jaymir.

~~~

It's been approximately three days since the Mandalorian left you when you hear the first signs of life. You sit up in your makeshift bed slowly, you have been occupying yourself by thinking up ways you could break through the wall of this ship if you needed to later having woken up an hour or so ago. Theres a spot on the wall that looks like it had been patched up from the outside that made you hopeful, maybe if you kicked it hard enough a few times the shoddy patchwork would come apart.

The noises coming from outside the ship are slightly different from what you would expect if the Mandalorian had returned. For one thing, it sounds like whoever is out there is talking. A lot. The voices are much more high pitched than him too, and they don't seem to be speaking basic. Maybe whoever it is will be willing to help you escape before the bounty hunter gets back, they might even give you a ship to help you leave this planet if you're lucky.

Whoever is outside your room spends a long time on the ship making a lot of noise before they free you. You can hear sounds of metal clanging, buzzing and cutting sounds that make you start to worry that maybe these people aren't exactly the sort you want to be finding you in here. Eventually, the buzzing noise moves closer and sparks begin flying from the door to the upper cargo hold. The door pops open and you see the panel that was locking the door fall to the ground.

Your heart sinks when you see the figure standing in the doorway. Bloody Jawas. There's no chance they're going to want to help you, since there's nothing in your possession they might want to trade for. The Jawa who broke open your door wanders into the room, calling something out to his friends through the ship. It takes a few glances around, looking at you sitting on the blankets, before making a huffing noise and waddling back out towards the cockpit.

“Hey!!” you yell, following the Jawa out of the room. “Do any of you lot speak basic? Or understand any of it?”

The creatures in front of you continue to garble at each other in what you assume is Jawaese, practically ignoring you standing in the doorway. You can now see that they have absolutely trashed the ship, it's in even worse a condition than it was before. Wires are hanging out of the dashboard everywhere, huge gaps in the walls expose the sun rising over a sandy ridge behind the ship. The Jawas are yelling at you, waving their arms and you step out of the way, letting them through the doorway where they begin descending the ladder.

You follow them down, taking in the sheer number of them as you leave the ship. 

“Any of you understand me?” you cry at them out of desperation. This could be your only chance to escape, and you know you don't have a chance of making it on your own on this planet.

“I'm here as a captive, someone please help me!!!”

The Jawas seem to be almost finished ransacking the ship. You think about making your way onto their sandcrawler and leaving as a stowaway, maybe you could get them to take you to some civilisation, someone who will understand what you’re saying. 

You’ve just sat down on the loading ramp, ready to give up, watching one of them carrying a large round piece of the ship, maybe a part of an engine, when suddenly the Jawa vanishes with a flash. You stand up quickly, frantically searching around to find the source of the evaporation when another one of the creatures vanishes. This time you see a flash of light coming towards it before it disappears, and turn around to find the source up on top of a nearby ridge. As you suspected, you spot the Mandalorian, crouched down aiming his pulse rifle towards the Jawas who are running frantically towards the crawler, abandoning whatever pieces of ship they are holding. There is something up there with him, from this distance it looks like a strange white orb hovering behind him.

Yet another Jawa disappears in a puff, just as the door to the sandcrawler closes and the machine starts to move away, quickly picking up pace. The Mandalorian stands up from his spot on the ridge and begins running down the hill, the orb following close behind him. He passes you and stops just a few steps ahead, crouching down to aim his rifle at the crawler. The shot he sends at the Jawas doesn't seem to do anything of use, and he slings the rifle onto his back. Standing up from his position, he turns around to look at you.

“Don't move, look after the kid” he calls out before turning back to sprint towards the sandcrawler. You watch after him, wondering what in the force he could possibly be intending to do. After catching up to the vehicle he jumps up to grab onto the ladder on the outside wall, beginning climbing up it. Watching the sandcrawler and the Mandalorian move away you shake your head at the stupidity of the man. There's no way anything he can do is going to stop the Jawas, its one man against a gang of them, and they have a vehicle.

Thinking back to what he said to you before leaving, you turn around to look at the orb behind you and realise what he meant when he said to “look after the kid”. The orb is a pram of some sort, and sitting inside is the strangest baby you have ever seen, and yet he may also be the cutest creature in the galaxy. Its huge black eyes look up at you with curiosity, and you stare back, probably with the same expression as the kid. You have no clue what species it is, you’ve never seen anything with such giant green ears, they're so out of proportion to the rest of its body that you think a strong breeze might lift it up and send it flying away. Who knows, maybe it can use them to fly.

Reaching into the pram, the baby stretches its little green arms out to you, making a cooing noise that suggests it is happy to be lifted up. You hold it facing you, trying to work out exactly what to make of it. Is this the other bounty the Mandalorian was sent to get? What could a baby possibly have done to have a bounty hunter sent after it?

Sitting down on a rock with the baby cradled in your arms, you turn to face the direction the Mandalorian went again. You can't see the sandcrawler any more, it has either turned behind a mountain or gone so far it's disappeared from view. Not knowing where the Mandalorian is or how long it's going to take for him to return, you resign to sit here with the baby for a while.

“What's your name little one?” you ask the kid, not knowing if it can speak or even understand you. It giggles back at you, and you nod thoughtfully as if it had replied in a full sentence.

“No name then? That's okay, I'll come up with something good.”

You wonder where the kid has come from, and where the Mandalorian is going to take it. Surely he wouldn't be taking a baby anywhere that it could be harmed, even a bounty hunter couldn't be so heartless.

“I dunno what's going to happen to you kid, but for the moment, I promise I will take care of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has read so far! Sorry for how boring the first few chapters are, I promise we'll start getting the backstory in the next few chapters!  
> Still deciding if I am going to come up with a nickname for Grogu before we find out his real name or not, so I would really love to hear which you would prefer


	3. Chapter 3

By the time the Mandalorian appears on the horizon again you have almost fallen asleep. It is early afternoon by the time he returns, at least a couple of hours since he chased after the Jawas, and the afternoon sun is making you sleepy. Evidently, it makes the baby just as sleepy as you since he fell asleep in your arms an hour ago. The kid looks so peaceful, softly snoring in your arms. You stand up slowly as the Mandalorian approaches you, so you don't wake the child. The bounty hunter is limping, clearly hurt in some way, although there aren't any obvious injuries, no blood is visible. It figures he’d be injured, as you think back to the way he had literally climbed up the side of a sandcrawler. Once he finally reaches you, the Mandalorian stops and stands a couple of metres away, and you think he seems to be staring at you, or maybe just at the kid. After a few seconds of silence you figure you should be the one to break the ice.

“So I gather you didn't manage to stop a pack of Jawas on your own?”

He stares for a few more seconds, turning his helmet to take a look back up to the remaining shell of his ship, before looking back at you.

“I'm surprised you're still here.” and he does genuinely sound surprised, you note from his slight change in tone.

“Yeah well,” you begin to reply, “I figured I wouldn't be any better off dying from dehydration in the middle of the desert than I am staying here. Besides, I couldn't carry all the food by myself.”

He sighs, and starts walking towards his ship. You wonder what he possibly thinks he can do with it, there's no way the cockpit even seals any more. Following him in, you watch him searching the lower cargo hold, opening the weapons cabinet on the wall to see there's nothing left, the Jawas have taken every single thing of use he owned. The Mandalorian grunts in frustration, and you have to hastily jump to the side as he storms past you to climb up the ladder.

You climb up into the cockpit behind him, watching as he starts pressing buttons and pulling levers on the dashboard. There's a moment of hope when some lights flash on and the engines seem to splutter to life, but unsurprisingly there's a clatter and a groan as everything stops working within seconds of it starting. The Mandalorian turns back around in his seat to face you and the kid.

“Yeah, that was gonna work.” you say to him in as sarcastic a voice you can muster, and he sighs before standing up and heading back down into the cargo hold. He paces the room a few times, before sitting down in his strange little bunk and sighing again, sounding as though he is close to giving up at this point. You wander over to the other side of the room and sit down on one of the few empty crates the Jawas left there.

There is a cooing noise, and you look down at the baby, who has finally woken up, you're surprised it hadn't when you had hoisted it into one arm to climb up to the cockpit. The Mandalorian looks across the room at the two of you, as if considering what to do next. 

“I'm going to have to go back to the Ugnaught, if we’re lucky he will know where to find a new ship.”

“The Ugnaught?” you question him.

“There is an Ugnaught living nearby, he helped me find the kid. We can be there by nightfall if we leave now.”

“What is an Ugnaught doing all the way out here?”

“This one is a farmer, seems to train Blurrg.”

“Aha Blurrg!! That explains the noises when you left the other day. So you took two steps onto this planet and you were almost killed by a Blurrg?”

The Mandalorian looks at you for a few seconds, before standing again, and coming over to take the baby from your arms. He walks down the ramp, you follow close behind, as you’re vaguely worried about how this hunter might treat a baby. Has he ever had to care for one before? He doesn't really seem to know how to hold the kid, with one hand under each of the babies armpits. You watch as he walks over to the child’s circular hovering pram, placing the kid in and covering it with the blankets inside.

“We need to start walking if we don’t want to sleep out here” he says without taking another glance at you. As he starts moving the pram seems to follow him automatically, and you quickly move to catch up with them.

“Are you not going to cuff me again?” you ask.

“The Jawas took everything. I dont have the binders any more.”

This makes you just a little bit relieved. There are much worse things than having your hands bound, you could be in carbonite, but they're certainly not the most comfortable thing in the universe. As you walk you wonder if the kid is asleep in the pram, the Mandalorian had pressed a button on the front and the top closed, like tiny rounded doors that mean you can’t see inside any more. At least it has somewhere more comfortable to stay, the Mandalorian said that you would get to the Ugnaught’s farm before dark but you have no idea exactly how long that would be. This walk could get uncomfortably long.

By the time the sun starts going behind the hills, your feet are starting to get sore. You aren't particularly experienced in walking long distances, these last couple of weeks you had probably broken a record of the number of steps you have ever done in that amount of time. The whole time you had been walking, neither you or the Mandalorian had spoken a single word. You have started thinking about the kid again, wondering what it is that the Mandalorian was hunting it for, where he’s going to bring the baby.

“Why the kid?” you ask quietly, almost hesitant to ask.

There's a short pause before the bounty hunter replies.

“What did you say?”

You take a deep breath before answering him.

“Why did you take the bounty on the baby? What did he do that meant you were okay with hunting a child?”

The Mandalorian doesnt answer for a couple of minutes, and you wonder if you took a step too far. Maybe he doesn't think it's any of your business, and to be honest he is probably right.

“I didn't know it was a kid.” he answers after a long pause. “The client said he was 50 years old but he didn't mention that this species ages so slowly.”

This surprises you. So the Mandalorian didn't even know that this was a child?

“If I had known he was just a baby I wouldn't have taken the job. But I have to take him to the client, I can't break the guild code.”

His admission of not knowing what he was getting himself into had made you hopeful that maybe the bounty hunter wouldn't give the kid away so easily, but at his last sentence your stomach drops along with your hope. He’s just as heartless as you expected then.

“Pretty fucked up code if it means you have to send a baby to his death.” you snap back at him.

“You don't know they’re going to kill him.” the Mandalorian replies, maybe a little bit hesitantly.

“But you don't know that they aren't going to kill him. Anyone with a conscience wouldn't risk it. But then again, I guess bounty hunters can’t have a conscience.”

You expect him to have a comeback for that, even just a sigh or something, but the Mandalorian doesn't make another noise. Either you've really pissed him off, in which case you're worried about what might be simmering in his head, or you've hit a nerve. In any case, he doesn't speak again until you reach the farm. The sun has fully set by the time you reach the Ugnaught, and you find him up a pole doing some sort of maintenance work. The Mandalorian treads up to the pole, turning his helmet to look up towards the farmer.

“I thought you were dead.” the Ugnaught remarks after glancing down at you. What great confidence he had in the Mandalorian, you think with a hint of sarcasm. He stops what he is doing and contemplates the three of you for a few seconds, before beginning his descent down the ladder.

Turning to look at the Mandalorian, you see him wander over to the pram, opening it and picking up the baby. He looks at the kid for a few seconds, before carefully setting him down on the sandy ground. You watch as the kid stands up and examines his surroundings, before his eyes focus on a frog which is hopping around a few metres away. You let out a little laugh as the kid starts waddling towards the creature, arms outstretched making cooing noises. It might do him some good to give him space to roam, who knows if he will ever get the opportunity again.

The Mandalorian starts mucking around with something on his vambrace, as the Ugnaught reaches the ground and turns to look at the kid, wiping his hands on a dirty cloth.

“This is what was causing all the fuss?” he asks, gesturing at the baby who is still intent on catching the frog.

“I think it's a child” the Mandalorian says, pausing his mechanics to watch him.

“It's better to deliver it alive then” the Ugnaught says, bringing you back to the conversation you had earlier with the Mandalorian. You wonder if he is remembering it too, and hope that he is feeling at least a little bit guilty about what might be done to the kid. The Ugnaught’s comment makes you think about whether the Mandalorian had been required to bring the bounty in alive or not. What kind of terrible person would even think about killing the kid, such a totally defenseless creature.

The Ugnaught takes his gaze off the child and looks at you. “And you must be the other bounty?”

You open your mouth to reply, but the Mandalorian beats you to it, cutting you off from saying anything else.

“My ship has been destroyed by Jawas, she wasn't secure there any more, I couldn't keep her there. We’re trapped here.”

“Stripped, not destroyed. The Jawas steal. They don't destroy” The Ugnaught says, noticing the Mandalorian struggling with his vambrace and handing him a small tool. He takes the tool with a nod of his helmet, and you sit down on a rock to watch the kid chasing the frog. This isn't your problem, either the Mandalorian can sort everything out and get you off this planet, or you can stay here with the Ugnaught indefinitely, it doesn't make a difference to you either way.

“Stolen or destroyed, makes no difference to me”

The Mandalorian turns to look at the kid, who has gotten much closer to the frog and is slowly stalking it across a patch of plant matter.

“They’re protected by the crawling fortress. There's no way to recover the parts.”

“You can trade,” the Ugnaught suggests, and you snort, trying not to laugh. There's no way the Mandalorian has anything worth trading with Jawas. They literally stole everything he owned, except for his armor and weapons, and you doubt he will easily give them up.

“With Jawas, are you out of your mind?” the Mandalorian echoes your thoughts perfectly.

“I will take you to them. I have spoken” 

The Mandalorian sighs, the Ugnaught’s word is clearly final. He turns to look at the kid again.

“Hey! Spit that out!” he says in such a strict voice he almost sounds like the kid’s father, as he notices that the little gremlin has finally caught the frog and is trying to swallow it whole. You laugh as he finishes the entire thing in one gulp. Greedy little bugger, there's no way that telling a hungry kid “stop it” is going to do anything, especially when the baby is as determined and hungry as this one seems to be. The kid burps, and giggles quietly as the Mandalorian shakes his head at him.

“Come, we must prepare.” the Ugnaught says, gesturing at the Mandalorian to follow him. “We shall leave before the sun rises.”

The bounty hunter looks back at you and the kid hesitantly, as if he isn't totally sure what to do with the two of you.

“I'll watch the kid” you tell him.

He continues watching you, and you realise that the real issue is that he still doesn't totally trust you not to try and run away. Jeez this guy is hard to win over, if you had thought you could survive out here you would have run when he was knocked out after chasing the Jawas.

“Where am I going to go?” you say with a shrug. “You know I wouldn't last more than a day out here on my own. I'll be fine looking after the kid, go sort out whatever you need.”

The Mandalorian sighs, giving in. “Just don't try anything. And make sure you don't lose sight of the kid, I don't want him disappearing either.”

“He's going to need some proper food eventually, I don't know what this kid is meant to eat or how much but he's clearly a greedy little creature.”

“You can feed him some of the food from the Ugnaught’s hut.” he says, gesturing at the small building a few metres away to your left. “Or you could hunt for some frogs, the kid seems to like them.”

As he wanders off after the Ugnaught, you turn back to look at the kid, who is squealing loudly, searching his surroundings for something new to entertain himself with. There are much worse places you could be right now, you think as you settle down to watch him for the night. This is actually quite peaceful, looking after what is possibly the cutest baby in the galaxy, the night air is cool but not so cold it’s uncomfortable. Everything is perfect right now, just so long as you don't think about what is going to happen to you and the child once the Mandalorian gets his ship fixed up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I've decided not to give Grogu a nickname? Its just too hard to come up with something that isn't overdone or cheesy, so for the moment we're sticking with calling him kid!  
> Also I'm sorry for updating heaps at the moment, I don't have any uni assignments due for another couple of weeks so I'm getting as much as I can out before it gets busy and I start only updating every few weeks!


End file.
